After 50 days of Israeli attacks on a basically defenseless civilian population in Gaza, the pro-Israeli media is now trying to blame the victims for the devastation. Worse, Israel’s supporters are running scurrilous ads that malign Hamas, even comparing it to ISIS. The editors and publishers of such media must urgently be confronted with demands that their outlets reflect the facts rather than the attacks on Palestnian resistance and the pro-Israeli re-writing of history. Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza illustrated Israel’s use of its Dagan Plan, using Israeli civilian deaths as an excuse to cause massive Palestinian casualties and its Dahiya Doctrine, causing such extensive destruction that it would take decades to recover, thus weakening the government. Israel not only targeted civilians (Washington Blog) (almost 2200 were murdered, with 11,000 injured) but also targeted the civilian infrastructure such as UN facilities, schools, hospitals, clinics, ambulances and medics, virtually every mosque, and the only power plant, which provided potable water. Hundreds of thousands were left homeless; entire families were wiped out; entire neighborhoods were razed to the ground. Gaza has been left with little food, no potable water, a lack of critical medical supplies, electricity, or even material to rebuild with. According to recent media accounts, Hamas was responsible for the devastation of Gaza: Hamas not only supposedly kidnapped and murdered the three settler students on June 12th, they also initiated the attacks on Israel, forcing Israel to “defend itself” by obliterating Gaza’s infrastructure and devastating their population. Hamas, according to such accounts, refused legitimate ceasefire deals and even broke the temporary ceasefires. Israel appears to be the victim of fiendishly clever Hamas which forced Israel to commit genocide (Cohn) — causing it very bad press — all for no good reason. Most media coverage omits the important background to the situation in Gaza:  Hamas won the 2006 election held throughout the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip because of its reputation for integrity, its concern for social welfare, and its insistence that Israel acknowledge Palestinian rights under international law;  Gaza is under Israeli military occupation: Israel’s total control of Gaza’s land, sea and air access has turned it into the world’s largest open-air prison. Since those under occupation are legally allowed to fight for their freedom, Palestinians have the legal right to bear arms;  Instead of acknowledging any Palestinian rights, Israel called Hamas “terrorist” and has arrested both legislators and members by virtue of their membership; Israel even stole Hamas tax moneys;  Israel imposed an illegal humanitarian siege on Gaza in 2006, tightening it in September 2007 to the extent that food, medical supplies, building supplies, school supplies, even soap and detergent have been banned; the restrictions, which cause permanent stunting of children and poor health throughout Gaza (Gilbert), have been compared to the notorious Warsaw Ghetto. This siege has been censored or minimized in our media. Gazans supported the Hamas attempt to force Israel to lift this siege, claiming that they would rather die than return to those conditions (Sourani)  On June 2, the “unity government” of Fatah and Hamas was sworn in, and much to Israel’s chagrin, with official American support; Israel no longer had an excuse to refuse negotiations.Israel responded to alleged Hamas actions by attacking Gaza Three settler students leaving Hebron were kidnapped and killed the night of June 12th. One student called the emergency police hotline to report that he was being kidnapped; the message was followed by shots, groans and almost two minutes of silence. Despite an exchange of 54 early-morning phone calls from a parent, a “search” was not started until the next day. Media was then informed that the students had been killed, but the government put a gag order on the story that lasted until the bodies were found on June 30th. [Tarachansky] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Hamas of the crime; local Hamas members were named as suspects. Despite Hamas’ denials, “retaliatory” air strikes on Gaza started on June 14th*, along with a “search” that started what would be a two-month rampage of arrests, beatings, killing and destruction throughout the West Bank, whipping up a frenzy of anti-Arab hatred. The Israeli government produced no hard evidence for its accusations. It was only after Israel killed a senior Hamas official on June 30, that Hamas responded with its first rockets since 2012. (Tarachansky) Former UN Special Rapporteur Richard Falk claims that “there’s no legal, political or moral argument that would uphold the claim that Israel is acting in legitimate self-defense.” (Klipperstein)While Israel had no legal right to attack Gaza, the responsibility for the deaths of the students is murkier. The Hamas leadership had nothing to gain and everything to lose from kidnapping Israeli students and they issued an official denial the day after Netanyahu’s accusation. Despite the admission of exiled Hamas leader Salah al-Arouri that al-Qassam Brigades was responsible for the abductions, the general consensus is that the Hamas leadership was unaware of it and not responsible for it. (Cameron, Crowcroft, Ginsburg) On August 5th Hussam Kawasme, a member of Hamas from Hebron, admitted his responsibility and implicated other family members and acquaintances. The Hamas political chief Khaled Mashaal appeared to acknowledge the results of the Israeli investigations but implied that the students were legitimate targets because they were aggressors, living illegally on stolen Palestinian land. [Isakoff] The Kawasme admissions were treated with some skepticism in initial Israeli articles, presumably because they could have been the result of torture.Circumstantial evidence points to Israel The Israeli motive for an event that would destroy the new “unity” government was evident, particularly because of its American support. Mideast experts such as Noam Chomsky, Henry Siegman and Michel Chossudovsky have also noted other motives: the annexation of Gaza and the ultimate control of Gaza’s offshore gas (which Israel is meanwhile benefiting from). The police emergency hotline response to the dramatic phone call for help was extraordinarily apathetic, as was the 8-9 hour delay before starting a search (Harel), which allowed the culprits generous time to cover their tracks. Israeli articles noted that Netanyahu offered no evidence whatsoever when he accused Hamas of the abduction (Tarachansky), and there seemed to be little interest in forensic investigation. Those who found the bodies in the remote hills were unidentified. Netanyahu’s use of this event to wreck havoc on both Gaza and the West Bank (and claim one thousand acres of land near Bethlehem) arouses suspicions of Israeli involvement. An important article by Avi Issacharoff points out the complexity of the operation and, implicitly, the likelihood that it could have been at least monitored by Shin Bet; the chief of Shin Bet had been seen in the Hebron area the week before the abductions. (Issacharoff) A week before the students’ abduction, Chief of the Mossad Tamir Pardo had wondered at the reaction if three students disappeared. (Chossudovsky) An extremist Salafi organization known as Dawlat al-Islam linked to ISIS claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of the three Israelis on August 13th; such a link could connect the act with the Israeli military, which has known links to ISIS. (Chossudovsky)Conclusion and urgent call to action: There is an urgent need to confront the media before the new blame the victim accounts and the maligning of Hamas and the legitimacy of Palestinian resistance are entrenched in the public understanding. Media accounts must hold Israel fully accountable for the devastation of Gaza and for the lethal, ongoing siege. Those who care about the situation facing Palestinians must take it upon themselves to challenge those responsible for the media accounts that blame the victims. Our own futures depend on it.* (Israel had been attacking Gaza with ongoing air strikes using other rationales. Gaza militias sometimes fired homemade rockets to protest their incarceration and the siege, which Israel would use as a rationale to mount ongoing air strikes on Gaza. Hamas does not control everything in Gaza.)Notes: Cameron, Dell. Israeli police official refutes claim that Hamas kidnapped Israeli teens. The Daily Dot. July 25, 2014. Accessed Sept. 3, 2014 Chossudovsky,Michel.“Justified Vengeance”, The Pretext for Bombing Gaza: Was the Netanyahu Government behind the Killings of the Three Israeli Teenagers?. Global Research. July 13, 2014. Accessed September 3, 2014 Cohn, Marjorie. US Leaders Aid and Abet Israeli War Crimes, Genocide & Crimes against Humanity.Jurist. August 8, 2014. Crowcroft, Orlando. Hamas official: we were behind the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers. The Guardian. August 21, 2014. accessed Sept. 3, 2014 Klipperstein, Ken. An Interview with Richard Falk on the Crisis in Gaza. Counterpunch. August 13, 2014. accessed Sept. 4, 2014 Gilbert, Mads. Brief report to UNRWA: The Gaza Health Sector as of June 2014. Accessed PDF Ginsburg, Mitch.Alleged mastermind of 3 teens’ killing indicted. Times of Israel. September 4. Accessed on Sept. 4, 2014 Harel, Amos. Tapes reveal pleas of kidnapped boy’s father met with call center apathy. Ha’aretz. July 2., 2014. accessed July 2, 2014 Isikoff, Michael. Mashaal admits Hamas members killed Israeli teens. The Times of Israel. August 22 2014. accessed Sept. 1, 2014 Issacharoff, Avi. How did the Shin Bet fail to spot the Hebron kidnap cell in time?. The Times of Israel. July 7, 2014. accessed Sept 3, 2014 Ratner, Michael.The Dahiya Doctrine: Evidence of Israel’s Intentional Mass Slaughter in Gaza. The Real News. August 24, 2014. accessed Sept. 3, 2014 Sourani, Raji. Violence has gone on too long – we have lost all hope. The Independent. July 11, 2014; accessed Sept. 1, 2014 Tarachansky, Lia. Israeli Government and Press Knew Teenagers Were Dead for Weeks. The Real News Network (TRNN). July 1, 2014. Accessed on July 1, 2014: Washington’s Blog. 150 + International Legal Experts: Israel Has Committed War Crimes. Global Research. August 9, 2014. accessed Sept. 3, 2014

According to the Palestinian News Network (PNN), it is claimed that as many as 10,000 people have fled the Gaza Strip in the past 8 months, as life for them becomes even more unbearable.

A recent statement by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), has confirmed that this recent phenomenon is occurring across the border into Sinai, through the infamous tunnels sensationalized via pro-Israeli media propaganda, before subsequent arrival of hopeful migrants at Egyptian coastal towns.

From here, some will further attempt to reach a destination of Italy or other European states by sea.

Smugglers reportedly charge around $4,000 per person, for transport, and take no responsibility should emigrants be arrested or killed. The danger involved in such a journey is considerable. This was recently confirmed, as a boat carrying 160 illegal immigrants capsized off the coast.

All who were aboard the vessel currently remain in the custody of Egyptian forces.

The desperate situation in Gaza has prompted thousands of Palestinians to risk their lives in search of a better future, PNN further reports. On top of the increased violence inflicted upon the region by the Israeli occupation, over the past decade, are a lack of opportunities due to the siege, leading to even further determination to escape the region, regardless of the law.

With checkpoints closed and Egypt unwilling to facilitate access, illegal migration through the tunnels into Sinai remains the only option for those seeking a new start.

The PFLP has called upon all Palestinian factions to come together in Gaza to find a solution to the crisis.

Refugees sleep on the pavement outside a UN school, during Israel's devastating 2014 assault on the Gaza StripChief of the UNICEF field office in Gaza, Pernille Ironside, in a statement said, “UNICEF and its partners will be playing a full part in the longer-term reconstruction of schools and the rest of the education infrastructure in Gaza, stressing that, “that would require donors to step forward with the necessary funds.” The statement stressed that UNICEF’s Back to School campaign is budgeted at just over $16 million until the end of 2014. “Children have suffered appalling losses as a result of the conflict,” said Pernille Ironside, Chief UNICEF Gaza Field Office. “That’s why it’s so vital that we get as many children as possible back into school immediately, so the healing process can begin in that more familiar environment,” said the statement. UNICEF is playing a key role in urgent preparations underway in Gaza ahead of the start of a new academic year on Sunday (September 14th). The resumption of classes in 395 government-run schools across the territory was delayed as a result of the brutal 50-day conflict with Israel that ended in a ceasefire on August 26th. Over the coming week, UNICEF’s team on the ground will be focusing on four key areas: · Coordination to ensure that children displaced by the fighting, or whose schools suffered heavy damage, are able to join a school in their neighborhood; · Carrying out immediate repairs and cleaning on schools that were used to shelter families displaced by the violence; · Planning and organization of a week of special recreational sessions for all schools, designed to allow trained staff to identify children who have been more seriously traumatized by the conflict -- and then refer them for specialized support; · Procurement and provision of school bags, school stationery and teaching aids; and school uniforms and shoes to assist priority families who are vulnerable. For some children, the return to class will not be easy. “I am very sad to go back to school and check on my friends,” said 17-year old Hanadi, who is now living with her family in a school shelter in Gaza city. I do not know if they are missing or still alive. I am very sad and I don’t know how I will go back to school. I am not in a studying state of mind. ” Others, like 16 year-old Sami, said getting back to school was a sign that some kind of normality was returning. “For me, school is my second home.… It feels good to be back, ” said Sami. To be noted, at least 501 children were killed in Gaza during the conflict, and over 3,374 were injured. According to the Ministry of Education, 26 government schools were completely destroyed, and at least 207 others (including 75 run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA) suffered varying degrees of damage.

A report released on Monday by the Daily Beast newspaper said the Israeli army had executed six resistance fighters from the armed wing of Islamic Jihad inside a bathroom of a house during the last war on the Gaza Strip. "While official investigations are stalled, the Daily Beast reveals important new details about the apparent summary execution of Palestinian combatants," the American newspaper stated on its website. The Daily Beast said it had reported evidence more than one month ago accusing Israeli soldiers of carrying out a summary execution of six men from Islamic Jihad amid fierce combat in late July in Khuza'a town to the

southeast of Gaza, but there was no sign that the Israeli government started afterwards to investigate the matter.

It noted that Israel had refused to respond to repeated international appeals for launching inquiries into the incidence of reported war crimes in Gaza.

"The independent organizations Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, which the Israeli authorities have barred from Gaza, are unable to follow up in detail. And a United Nations investigation of abuses on both sides is barely underway," the US newspaper said.

However, the newspaper made efforts to investigate the incident and one of its reporters was able to make contacts with an eyewitness from the armed wing of Islamic Jihad who confirmed that the six men who had been found massacred inside the house bathroom were a commando group of his comrades and not civilians as some international media reports had said.

According to its investigations, the slain Islamic Jihad fighters were trying to ambush Israeli soldiers in Khuza'a when they themselves were caught, captured, herded into a bathroom inside an abandoned house and gunned down in an incident that, if confirmed, would be a war crime.

While official investigations are stalled, The Daily Beast reveals important new details about the apparent summary execution of Palestinian combatants.

More than a month after The Daily Beast reported evidence suggesting Israeli soldiers carried out the summary execution of six men amid fierce combat in late July, there are no signs that the Israeli government is investigating the matter. It has declined to respond to repeated inquiries. The independent organizations Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, which the Israeli authorities have barred from Gaza, are unable to follow up in detail. And a United Nations investigation of abuses on both sides is barely under way.

The Daily Beast has continued its own investigation, however. And the picture that’s emerging tends to confirm the story of a summary execution, on the one hand, while undermining subsequent reports by some in the international press who suggest the dead men, left to rot in the bathroom of a battered house, were merely innocent bystanders. Instead, they appear to have been hardened guerrilla fighters from Islamic Jihad who were trying to ambush Israeli soldiers when they themselves were caught, captured, herded into an abandoned bathroom and gunned down in an incident that, if confirmed, would be a war crime.

After repeated efforts, I was finally able to make contact with a member of Islamic Jihad who said he fought in the battle of Khuzaa and who presented a detailed picture of what happened from his organization’s perspective.

As we sipped Arabic coffee in a Gaza City hotel, the well-coiffed and slightly awkward man in his late twenties, who chose to call himself Abu Muhammad, talked about 23 ferocious days of combat, and about the last radio communication he heard with the six fighters before they were captured and killed.

From July 16 to August 8, Abu Muhammad said, he and the others were hidden below Khuzaa in a series of tunnels that he says are connected to other underground passages linking Gaza from north to south. He maintains that Israel, which made these a prime target, only managed to destroy a fraction of them during the war.

Abu Muhammad, occasionally staring off into the distance and clearly shaken, said he and the others had arrived in Khuzaa, which is right on the Gaza-Israel border, by tunnel days before Israel began its ground assault.

In the beginning, fighters from Islamic Jihad joined with the Al Qassam Brigades of Hamas and the Popular Resistance Committees in a furious tit-for-tat mortar and rocket exchange with Israeli forces lining the border.

However, as the ground invasion neared, according to Abu Muhammad, an intense Israeli campaign that included bombing from F-16s and intense artillery fire killed many fighters. Civilians began fleeing as shelling intensified, but real panic came when Israel moved in its tanks, and the civilian exodus began in earnest.

During this phase of the fighting, the Palestinian resistance in the town hunkered down and waited as the Israeli shelling and aerial bombardment laid waste to one building after another in order to clear a path for tanks and jeeps. From the tunnels, the fighters could hear above them Israeli troops carving out the buffer zone that would eat up about 44 percent of Gaza’s territory and leave much of that area reduced to rubble.

“After we had been in the tunnels about a week, with the Israelis firing mortars, they drove in with the tanks,” said Abu Muhammad, who apologized about his uncertain grasp on specific dates. He’d lost track of the days after so much time underground, he said, but he remembered, “There were around 60 tanks.”

Only when Israel had positioned its forces around Khuzaa did the armed Palestinian groups begin their counterattack, according to Abu Muhammad. “First we targeted the tanks and the jeeps with IEDs,” he said mechanically, as if recalling a combat briefing. In the second stage of their effort to bog down and then repel Israeli forces, the three guerrilla factions launched a multi-pronged hit-and-run campaign from all directions.

“Some of our people would come out of the ground, attack the soldiers and then disappear back into a tunnel,” said the combat veteran. “Others surprised them from empty houses,” he said.

In one of those brazen attacks, says Abu Muhammad, fighters used a shoulder-fired rocket to hit a house the Israeli army had taken over, killing two of the soldiers with sniper fire as they fled the building. He is unable to give an overall estimate of Israeli or Islamic Jihad casualties in Khuzaa, but says 130 fighters from his group were killed during the war. (Israeli intelligence puts that number at 182.)

When I visited Khuzaa on four occasions during and after the war, there were clear signs of an intense battle in the ruins of the town. Incoming and outgoing machine-gun fire covered homes and apartments near positions taken by Israeli soldiers. Israeli bullet casings littered the floors of the entrances to residences that were transformed into stucco barracks.

It is amid this type of all-encompassing urban warfare that Abu Muhammad appears to have borne witness to a perplexing, and very possibly criminal, execution of prisoners.

He is unable to pinpoint the date when he says his comrades were mowed down, but he recalls in detail the events leading to their capture and the last moments of their lives, broadcast over Islamic Jihad walkie-talkies.

He stares at the table, speaking softly as he describes how six fighters emerged from the mouth of a tunnel, adjacent to the town’s destroyed mosque and water tower, intending to lead a brief surprise attack on soldiers. Except, in this instance it was the Israeli army that had the element of surprise and the guerrillas found themselves in an all-out firefight at the entrance to the tunnel.

As the Islamic Jihad unit retreated towards the house where they would die, they messaged that one of the fighters was injured and that they were running out of ammunition. They barricaded themselves in the unfinished two-story home. Abu Muhammad heard a drawn-out firefight over the radio. He contends that another Islamic Jihad member watched the events from an adjacent house.

“The wounded resistance fighter demanded to be left at the entrance of the house to fight off the army as they came in,” said Abu Muhammad.

When I was in the house, I found a used medical kit with Arabic instructions in the room next door to the bathroom where the fighters were killed.

Abu Muhammad claims that during the firefight that used up the Islamic Jihad unit’s remaining ammunition, he heard Israeli drone rockets fired into the roof of the house. However, this did not square with what I saw. It is one of the few homes in Khuzaa with no signs of shell damage.

“The Israelis first entered the house and began clashing with the injured fighter,” says Abu Muhammad, describing what he could make out from radio communications and what he says he was told by the fighter who watched from nearby. My request to speak to that fighter was denied by Islamic Jihad for “security reasons.”

When the Palestinians ran out of ammunition, the army moved in. The Israeli soldiers grabbed the fighter in the entrance, “pulled him outside and shot him in front of the house,” Abu Mohammed says. “Then they went into the house with dogs. In situations like this there is no way for these guys to fight off the dogs. I heard their screaming and begging for mercy on the radio.”

Then the line went dead. Repeating the report from the alleged eyewitness, Abu Muhammad contends that Israeli soldiers removed the fighters’ weapons and ammunition vests from the house. “After that there was a long burst of fire from an M16, and then silence.”

On my first visit to Khuzaa I found two ammunition vests around the corner from the bathroom where six bodies were piled. The decomposing corpses wore the black pants and belts that fighters wear, although some were barefoot. They were being carried out and the stench of their rotting flesh and bloated guts made it hard to examine them closely.

Bullet holes lined the tile wall behind where they lay. Israeli bullet casings filled the entrance to the house, where Abu Muhammad says the injured soldier intended to make a last stand before he ran out of ammo.

Islamic Jihad is still withholding the names of its dead fighters, and while Abu Muhammad says the families have been informed, their identities remain secret for now.

The Israelis estimate the total number of Islamic Jihad fighters in Gaza to be roughly 5,200, while Hamas numbers about 16,000. (That is among a civilian population of roughly 1.8 million, half of whom are children and teenagers.) The 50-day Gaza War this year, which was sparked by a widespread campaign of Israeli arrest raids in the West Bank that was met with Islamic Jihad and Hamas rockets, and which terminated in an uneasy ceasefire, cost the lives of six Israeli civilians and 64 Israeli soldiers.

The Palestinian death count, even by the conservative Israeli estimate, was 2,127. Israeli intelligence claims 341 were from Hamas, 182 from Islamic Jihad and 93 from smaller factions, while 706 unquestionably were civilians, presumably including most or all of the 253 women and 495 children known dead. Israeli intelligence, which The Washington Post notes is anxious to reduce the stunning civilian body count, says the intelligence briefer claimed the status of 805 of the dead remained “unknown.”

The fog of Israel’s 50-Day war in Gaza has only just begun to clear and while there is still much mystery shrouding the battle for Khuzaa, the more the record of those events takes shape, the more grim it appears.

Fishing Boats Attacked By The Israeli Navy - FileIsraeli Navy boats attacked, on Tuesday at dawn, Palestinian fishing boats in the Sudaniyya Sea, near Beit Lahia, in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, and kidnapped four fishermen. The Maan News Agency has reported that the fishermen, all members of the Sultan family, have been kidnapped by the navy, and were taken to an unknown destination. The Israeli attack also caused property damage to a number of boats.

The attack is yet another Israeli violation to the cease-fire agreement, as the navy kidnapped two fishermen in the area a week ago, while the Navy also attacked fishing boats four times since the cease-fire deal was reached on August 26.

The fishermen are supposed to be allowed to fish within six nautical miles off the Gaza shore, but the navy continued to attack, and open fire, at Palestinian boats in Gaza waters in northern and southern Gaza.

(Screengrab: The Times of Israel) The video clip showing apparent firing from an annex to the hospital was actually shot during Israel's 2008-09 "Operation Cast Lead," and the audio clip accompanying it was from an incident unrelated to Al Wafa. A video distributed by the Israeli military in July suggesting that Palestinian fighters had fired from the Al Wafa Rehabilitation and Geriatric Hospital in Gaza City was not shot during the recent Israeli attack on Gaza, and both audio and video clips were manipulated to cover up the fact that they were from entirely different incidents, a Truthout investigation has revealed. The video, released by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on July 23, the same day Israeli airstrikes destroyed Al Wafa, was widely reported by pro-Israeli publications and websites as proving that the hospital was destroyed because Hamas had turned the hospital into a military facility. But the video clip showing apparent firing from an annex to the hospital was actually shot during Israel's 2008-09 "Operation Cast Lead," and the audio clip accompanying it was from an incident unrelated to Al Wafa. The misleading video was only the last in a series of IDF dissimulations about Al Wafa hospital that included false claims that Hamas rockets had been launched from the hospital grounds, or very near it, and that the hospital had been damaged by an attack on the launching site. The IDF began to prepare the ground for the destruction of Al Wafa hospital well before Israeli ground troops entered Gaza on July 17. On July 11, the IDF fired four warning rockets on the fourth floor of Al Wafa, making a large hole in the ceiling - the standard IDF signal that a building was going to be destroyed by an airstrike. On July 17, the hospital was hit by a total of 15 rockets, according to Dr. Basman Alashi, Al Wafa's director. After the first few rockets, a phone call from the IDF "asked how much time do you need to evacuate?" he told Truthout. After the second and third floors were largely destroyed, the patients' rooms were filled with smoke and the hospital lost electricity, he gave the order to evacuate the hospital. An IDF spokesman told Allison Deger of Mondoweiss that Hamas rocket launches had come "from exactly near the hospital, 100 meters near." A slide show released by the IDF August 19 includes an aerial view of

Al Wafa Hospital with two alleged rocket launching sites marked that are clearly much farther from the hospital than the 100 meters.

Even if that IDF claim of 100 meters were accurate, however, it was more than sufficient to allow the IDF to hit the launch site with precision-guided munitions without damaging the hospital. Israeli air to ground missiles, especially those fired from drones, are known to be able to hit small targets without causing collateral damage to nearby buildings. An IDF video posted on August 9, for example, shows a missile destroying what is said to be a hidden rocket launch site without harming a mosque only a few meters away from the explosion.

IDF spokesman Captain Eytan Buchman nevertheless blandly suggested that it was collateral damage from striking the launch site. He said the IDF was "left with no choice" but to "target the launcher with the most precise munitions capable of ensuring its destruction."

On July 21, the IDF Spokesman's Office pushed its propaganda line linking Al Wafa and rocket launching sites even further, claiming in a tweet and on its blog, "Hamas fires rockets from Wafa hospital in the Gaza neighborhood of Shujaiya." Under that headline was an aerial photo enhanced to highlight what was said to be Al Wafa Hospital, along with a red dot representing an M-75 rocket launch site that was not on the hospital grounds, but appeared to be a few meters away.

But the building shown in the aerial photo was not Al Wafa hospital, as Dr. Alashi quickly pointed out. A Google map of Al Wafa hospital shows none of the buildings resemble the one the IDF identified as Al Wafa. The building in the IDF image belongs to the Right to Life Society.

After that prevarication had been revealed, the IDF added a new claim that "the hospital grounds" had been used by Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad as "a post enabling terrorists to open fire at soldiers."

The IDF said that Hamas had "fired at Israel and at IDF forces from the hospital" despite warnings from the IDF, and the IDF had been forced to attack targets on the hospital site.

The statement was accompanied by a video purporting to document the firing at Israeli troops. Based on the camera angle and altitude, the video was taken by an Israeli drone, according to a former US intelligence officer, with experience in interpreting military-related images, who analyzed the video for Truthout.

The first segment of the video is a grainy, black-and-white aerial shot of a building that starts with the legend, "Terrorists Threaten IDF from inside Wafa Hospital." The building shown is not Al Wafa hospital, however, but an annex to the hospital that had been empty, both Dr. Alashi and Charlie Andeasson, a Swedish activist who was in the hospital when it was attacked on July 16, told Truthout.

The eight-second video shows what could be two brief bursts of fire from one of the windows on the third floor and then a third flash in a fourth story window. The former US intelligence officer confirmed that the footage of the building was selected from two different times of day. After the first three seconds of the video, the camera angle and the amount of light both change perceptibly. Nevertheless an exchange between the two voices on the audiotape accompanying the video continues as though the scene were continuous during the entire eight seconds.

The first voice heard on the audio recording says, in Hebrew, "Do you see this firing? Have spotted fires from within the house." The English subtitles accompanying the audio add "hospital" in parentheses after the word "house," but Seattle-based blogger on Israeli affairs Richard Silverstein, who speaks Hebrew, confirmed to Truthout after listening to the audio clip that the speaker uses the word "bayit," which can only mean "house."

A second voice then says, according to the subtitles, "Positive, fire from within the house." But the speaker actually uses the term "small house" ("bayit ha katan hazeh"), according to Silverstein.

Those references to firing from a small house indicate that the audio clip was taken from an entirely different incident at another location. That device was obviously used because there was no audio of an incident involving firing from the hospital.

Dr. Alashi said he believes the eight-second video clip portrays firing from the annex that occurred in the 2008-09 Israeli attack on Gaza. "People confirmed to me that there was firing from the building then," he told Truthout. That building was, in fact, attacked on January 16, 2009, by Israeli tanks only 70 meters away from the hospital, damaging the third and fourth floors of the building - the very floors from which the flashes are shown in the video - as the UN Fact-Finding Mission noted in its September 2009 report.

The last segment of the video showing the bombing of the Al Wafa hospital, bears the legend "secondary explosion" - meaning explosions of weapons - as each building is shown being destroyed, in line with the Israeli argument throughout the operation that Hamas stored rockets and other weapons in hospitals, schools and mosques.

The video fist shows the hospital itself being blown up, followed by heavy billowing smoke covering the entire hospital and then another flash of fire. But the former intelligence official who viewed the video said that flash indicated another Israeli missile strike on the target rather than a secondary explosion.

The clip then cuts to the destruction of the annex, again with the "secondary explosion" legend. The billowing smoke from the initial bomb explosion covers the building, and then two or three small puffs of darker smoke appear. Those puffs of smoke would suggest a secondary explosion, according to the former US intelligence officer. But he also observed that a hospital would have flammable materials other than hidden weapons that could cause the darker smoke to appear.

Given the existence of Hamas' complex network of tunnels, which provided plenty of storage space for its rockets and other weaponry, it would have made no sense for Hamas to store rockets in a hospital that it knew had already been targeted by the IDF.

In its final seconds, the video focuses in to show a square which the legend describes as a “tunnel opening near Al Wafa.” But Dr. Alashi told Truthout that it is actually a water well.

The IDF real reason for the destruction of Al Wafa hospital appears to be related to the determination to raise the cost to the civilian population of Gaza for Palestinian resistance, in line with the approach represented by its "Dahiya doctrine," named after the Beirut suburb dominated by Hezbollah, much of which the Israeli Air Force reduced to rubble in the 2006 war.

That strategy, recognized as a violation of the international laws of war, was pursued most obviously in the complete destruction of every house in several square blocks in three separate areas of the Shujaiya district of Gaza City July 19-20. But it was also evident in IDF attacks on Al Wafa and in the series of mortar and artillery attacks on six different UN shelters from July 21 though August 3. Those attacks killed a total of 47 civilians and wounded 341, according to a survey of the incidents by The Guardian.

In none of the six cases where UN shelters were hit by IDF mortar shells was the military able to offer a plausible explanation, and in three cases, it offered no explanation whatever.

The Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture states that Israel has violated the recent ceasefire agreement made with the Palestinians, now allowing Gaza fishermen to sail up to only five nautical miles off the coast.

According to Al Ray Palestinian Media Agency, the ministry declared, Monday, in a brief statement:

“Israeli warships, this morning, fired on fishing boats when they entered the six miles’ distance, and marked the five-mile limit to warn the fisherman against crossing over it.”

The statement added that this act is yet another violation of the ceasefire deal, signed in late August, between the Palestinian and Israeli factions.

The agreement stipulated that Israel would immediately expand the fishing zone off Gaza's coast, allowing fishermen to sail as far as six nautical miles off the shore, and would expand the area gradually up to 12 miles.

Prior to this agreement, Israel had maintained a limit of three nautical miles for the fishermen, opening fire at any who dared venture further, despite earlier agreements which had actually settled on a 20-mile limit.

Under the terms of the deal, Israel also agreed to ease its siege on the Gaza Strip.

Al Ray further reports that this violation now marks the third of the ceasefire agreement, as last Tuesday Israeli naval warships fired towards fishermen off the coast of Rafah.

Israeli soldiers opened fire, the following morning, at a number of Palestinian fishing boats close to the shore in the Sudaniyya area, west of Gaza City, and kidnapped two.

Hardline Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Sunday he doubted the current Gaza ceasefire would hold over the long term and that disarming Palestinian factions was not feasible anytime soon.

After briefing Israeli journalists he was quoted across the local media as saying that he thought the chances of Egypt-mediated talks achieving their goal of a durable Gaza truce were slim.

"Any ceasefire, in my opinion, will be limited in time," Lieberman said.

Disarming the coastal strip was not on the immediate horizon, he said, but it should be kept in the forefront of international public opinion.

"Demilitarization is not realistic at the moment," he was quoted as saying.

But he said that no other force but Israel would be capable of enforcing and verifying disarmament.

"Nobody will bring about disarmament but us," he said. "Nobody else will go from house to house like us."

At the start of a meeting with Norwegian Foreign Minister Boerge Brende, Lieberman said that the immediate challenge was how to allow reconstruction of war-shattered Gaza without allowing money and materials reaching Hamas, the de facto power in the territory.

"The issue is first of all how to rebuild the civilian infrastructure and prevent Hamas to rebuild the terrorist infrastructure," he said in English in remarks broadcast on local television and radio.

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin also raised the subject when he met Brende.

"The rehabilitation and reconstruction of Gaza should go along with the demilitarization of Gaza because otherwise we can see in no time the next round (of violence)," Rivlin said.

"If the Hamas people once again will spend all the money the whole world is trying to help them in order to reconstruct Gaza, put it into military aims and ability of attacking Israel once again, we can come to a dead end once again," he said, also in English.

The reconstruction of the Gaza Strip will cost $7.8 billion following Israel's devastating seven-week offensive, the Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction said.

The Israeli assault cost the lives of more than 2,150 Gazans, destroyed thousands of homes, severely damaged the enclave's sole power plant, and burnt dozens of factories.

Israel imposed a severe blockade on Gaza in 2007 after Hamas was democratically elected into power.

Israeli gunboats roaming the sea off Gaza shores opened fire at Palestinian fishing boats on Monday morning at the pretext of fishing beyond the allowed limit. Walla Hebrew website site claimed that the gunboats only fired warning shots and did not cause any casualties or material damage. It said that the Israeli navy fired six times at Palestinian fishermen since the truce went into effect two weeks ago to warn them not to exceed the limit of six nautical miles.

On 10 July 2014, just days after the escalation of violence in the Gaza Strip, the World Health Organization raised concern about the ability of the Ministry of Health of the occupied Palestinian territory to cope with the new emergency and its increased burden on the health system, given the high levels of shortages of medicines, medical disposables and hospital fuel supplies, and rising health care debt. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Palestinian Ministry of Health, and with UNRWA coordination, called on local and international donors to support the Ministry by providing US$ 40 million for medicines and medical supplies, and US$ 20 million for referral costs, to protect the health and welfare of Palestinians during the emergency.

The violence has been unprecedented in terms of the human toll. At the time of the appeal, there had been 80 deaths and 570 injuries, and one hospital and three clinics had been damaged. Today, following a negotiated ceasefire ending 51 days of violence, the casualty toll stands at 2130 deaths and more than 11 000 injuries, most of whom have been treated in Ministry of Health hospitals and clinics. At the same time, 17 of Gaza’s 32 hospitals and 45 of 97 primary health clinics have been damaged, and 4 hospitals and 5 clinics are still closed after severe damage.

The WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean, Dr Ala Alwan, toured Gaza on August 11 and visited Gaza’s main hospital, Al Shifa, meeting with casualty patients, health workers and the hospital directors. Dr Alwan congratulated the hospital directors and leaders in the health sector for being able to maintain effective emergency services, even when 240 seriously injured patients arrived at the same time: “Their heroic efforts and highly professional work are greatly appreciated.”

The response from the donor community through providing humanitarian aid and assistance to the Palestinian health sector has been crucial for maintaining services at a high level in Gaza. According to the Ministry of Health, which together with WHO, is coordinating with donors to ensure that aid is targeted to needs and that delivery is facilitated into Gaza, a total of US$ 12.6 million from 39 donor agencies, governments, humanitarian organizations and other donors has been delivered to the health sector in Gaza. Two thirds of these donations (US$ 8.35 million) were targeted to Ministry of Health facilities. Ninety-two per cent of the donations to the Ministry of Health were medicines and medical disposables, especially for trauma treatment. The remaining donations were for medical equipment, fuel supplies to hospitals, and meals for patients and staff in hospitals.

In addition, US$ 5.3 million in donations from 28 donors are in process or in the pipeline for delivery to Gaza. Almost all is for drugs and medical supplies and destined for the Ministry of Health facilities.

In total, the WHO appeal for US$ 40 million for medicines and medical supplies for the Ministry of Health in Gaza has achieved a response rate of 45%, considering both medical supplies delivered and those in the pipeline, as reported by the Ministry of Health up to 3 September. In addition, the UN Gaza appeal which was launched during the emergency and was updated following the ceasefire, requests US$ 23.5 million for health sector intervention to be implemented by UN agencies, including US$ 8.1 million for WHO, and by nongovernmental organizations to support health services in Gaza in the recovery period.

Senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh called on Sunday for the formation of a committee to follow up on the Aug. 26 ceasefire deal with Israel.

Haniyeh said in a conference at the Rashad al-Shawa Cultural Center in Gaza that a committee to ensure Israel's implementation of the agreement should be formed by Palestinian factions, the PLO, and the West Bank-Gaza unity government.

He also demanded that the unity government expand its work in the West Bank and Gaza, a day after President Mahmoud Abbas accused Hamas of running a "shadow government" in Gaza and not respecting the unity government's jurisdiction.

All political tiffs must stop, Haniyeh said.

Less than two weeks after the declaration of the ceasefire, there have been widespread reports that the fishing zone off the coast of Gaza has not been increased as promised, with at least two instances of Palestinian fishermen claiming to have been fired upon by Israeli forces well within the newly-imposed six-mile limit.

Israel and Palestinian militant groups in the Gaza Strip ended over seven weeks of fighting on Aug. 26 with a long-term ceasefire agreement in which Israel agreed to ease its siege on the coastal enclave and immediately expand the fishing zone off its coast.

Abbas, speaking to a group of Egyptian journalists and scholars in Cairo on the first day of a three-day visit, said Saturday that the Palestinian Authority "would not accept the situation in Gaza to continue as it is now and in this shape."

"There are 27 undersecretaries of ministries who are running the Gaza Strip, and the national consensus government cannot do anything on the ground," Abbas said, referring to the officials of the former Hamas government who continue to maintain power in Gaza despite an April agreement that led to a government of national unity between PLO and Hamas.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said on Sunday that Abbas should stop conducting dialogue through the media.

"President Abbas' remarks against Hamas and the resistance are unjustified and the sources of information and figures he relied on were incorrect and have nothing to do with the truth."

A lawsuit was filed on Saturday against Israel by actors, activists, politicians and pro-Palestinian solidarity groups in Argentina, a statement released by the Palestinian embassy in Buenos Aires said. The case was brought before the federal court of justice in the city of Cordoba. The case was named "Lawsuit against the Authorities of Israel for Committing Crimes against Humanity and Genocide against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip." Journalist Serkhio Ortiz, head of the Argentinean committee of honoring the missing and victims, actor Juan Jose-Tutu, and singer and actress Mara Santosho, were among the people who signed the case. The signatories called in their lawsuit for issuing an international arrest warrant against Israeli figures through the Interpol and forcing Israel to compensate for the human and material losses that it had caused during its war on Gaza.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has said that 111 of its installations in the Gaza Strip had been damaged during the 51-day Israeli aggression on the enclave. It added that three of those installations were completely destroyed and are in need of reconstruction. UNRWA said that it started to assess the extent of damage in its installations as a result of what it called the “hostilities between Hamas and Israel” in Gaza. The international agency that its Infrastructure and Camp Improvement program teams toured those installations to evaluate the damage.

An Algerian medical delegation is due to arrive in Gaza in the next few days to provide urgent medical assistance for the hundreds of Palestinians wounded during the Gaza offensive, the Directorate of General Medical Services at the Interior Ministry revealed. The delegation is made up of orthopedists and pediatricians along with a group of experts in plastic and vascular surgery, the Interior Ministry said in an online statement on Saturday. The statement called on all citizens, especially casualties of the latest Gaza offensive, wishing to be checked by the Algerian medical delegates to head to the Algerian hospital in Abasan, in Khan Younis, to south of Gaza, starting from 9 a.m. until 1 p.m. on Sunday.

Mufeed Muhammad al-Hasayna, Palestinian Minister of Public Works and Housing, hailed Qatari Emir and government for their genuine assistance to the Palestinian people. Talking during the distribution of Qatari emergency relief aids to the casualties of the Italian tower complex, al-Hasayna said: “For the great and self-sacrificing people Palestinians have always been, the government shall spare no effort to make their dreams come true.” “We are ready to assume all of our responsibilities in the reconstruction of what has been destroyed by the Israeli occupation. The government has been working since the early hours of the offensive to delineate the damages and provide the necessary relief structures and shelters for the victims,” he declared. “We are in need of $100 million as emergency relief aid to the displaced and homeless Palestinians, whose names figure on our official lists” he stated. “We are ready to cooperate with all international parties to that end” Al-Hasayna hailed the steadfastness of the Palestinian people during the 51-day-long offensive on the besieged Gaza Strip. He further applauded the rescue crews and pro-Palestine journalists for having worked day and night for the embattled enclave.